March 25, 2010

BY LIZ MONTEIRO, Published in the Kitchener Waterloo RECORD

WATERLOO — Highly skilled immigrants in Canada are living in poverty because they can’t access jobs in their fields and they face racism that is embedded in Canadian institutions, a Toronto community activist told a group of people gathered in Waterloo to talk about how better to integrate immigrant populations.

“Racism is not just in individuals … it’s embedded in our structural institutions,’’ said Uzma Shakir.

“We need to change the source of the problem. For God’s sake be radical,’’ Shakir told more than 200 people gathered at the Luther Village Sunshine Centre for a community forum Wednesday.

The forum focused on how best to create a local immigration partnership council made up of settlement agencies in conjunction with school boards, hospitals and local government to better serve recent immigrant populations. Some of the areas the council hopes to act on include increasing civic engagement, employment and improving settlement services

Citizenship and Immigration Canada asked communities to look at forming an immigrant council to bring various groups together. The Region of Waterloo received $175,000 in a federal grant for the initial steps in the project and is working with the Centre for Community Based Research and the Waterloo Region Immigrant Employment Network.

Shakir, the past president of the Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants, said language is fundamental in terms of preserving culture and protecting it, and if organizations are not equipped with the diversity of languages, “the problem is not the people but the organization.’’

“We carry the bag of multiculturalism but we won’t carry the price of multiculturalism,’’ she said.

There is a significant shift in the demographic of immigrants coming to Canada and Canadians need to be ready, she said. Most are people of colour coming from places Canada has never seen before, such as Africa, Asia and Latin America.

“These immigrants are highly qualified, more than ever before in the history of immigration,’’ she said.

But newcomers, who settle mostly in urban areas, are disproportionately living in poverty, said Shakir who calls this the colour of poverty.

In Waterloo Region, 22.3 per cent of residents are immigrants or refugees and by 2031, it’s expected the population of newcomers will increase to 30 per cent.

According to Statistics Canada, the region is one of the top seven Canadian communities that newcomers choose to call home.

Shakir said civic engagement of immigrant populations will come when they feel ownership and a sense of pride in their country.

“The challenge is how can we change Canadian norms and become in tune with the globalized world we live in,’’ she said. “We have no problem buying clothes made in Bangladesh but we have a problem when they come here.

“If you are a person of colour, you are seen differently,’’ said Shakir, who knows many skilled visible minority immigrants who are working as taxi cab drivers and pizza deliverers in “precarious” temporary employment.

Ghazala Fauzia, who attended the forum, said she hopes by talking about barriers facing newcomers that some of them can be better understood by other Canadians and why living in Canada can be a struggle for recent immigrants.

Fauzia came to Canada in 2006 with her husband and four children. Her husband, who was an engineer in Pakistan, is now working as an engineer here, but Fauzia, who had a master’s degree from her homeland, felt she had to enrol at Wilfrid Laurier University’s social work grad school to work in the social services sector in the region.

“From the first day I arrived here, I didn’t feel I had an equal status coming as an immigrant,’’ Fauzia said. “I feel like I’m a lower-class citizen.

“I feel there is no place for me because I don’t have a Canadian philosophy or have Canadian norms,’’ she said.

Fauzia said her family chose Canada because they were told that it valued multiculturalism, “but I don’t see it.’’

Fauzia said immigrants must change, too, but “we don’t want to change ourselves completely. I want to keep my identity.’’

Julia Langham, regional manager at Libro Financial Group, said employers must recognize they have an opportunity to address the needs of a changing demographic and be leaders.

“We have to get this. It’s an economic imperative,’’ she said. “We need to be proactive and have conversations and dialogue so we know the face of our changing community.

“We can bury our heads in the sand but the stats say it will change,’’ Langham said. “If we do nothing, we will still have a changed workforce and as employers we will be scrambling.’’

lmonteiro@therecord.com